By Theodora Filis As the 8th Annual International Asbestos Awareness Conference (Asbestos: An International Public Health Crisis) comes to an end today, an email from Libby, Montana, pops up in my mailbox. It's from a gentleman who has just been diagnosed with Pleural Thickening – a common side effect of exposure to asbestos, and an early warning sign for mesothelioma and asbestosis – seeking answers to questions he has no idea he should be asking. In February of 2004, W.R. Grace & Co. along with seven current or former executives were indicted in a federal court in Missoula, Montana, for breaking environmental laws and conspiring to cover up what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has described as the biggest environmental disaster to human health it has ever faced. According to the EPA: “W.R. Grace and its executives, as far back as the 1970s, attempted to hide the fact that toxic asbestos was present in vermiculite products at the company’s Libby, Montana p...
It is imperative we all pay attention to the impact of our collective and personal actions on the environment. During the next decade, our global community will be unable to deal effectively with the formidable environmental challenges posed by decades of environmental mismanagement. I hope you question and research everything.